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The Irrigation Department will build a reservoir across a canal on tourist-destination Koh Chang in Trat to tackle its water shortage.

Irrigation Department director general Dr Thongplaew Kongchan said the Cabinet approved the reservoir construction during its retreat in Chanthaburi on Tuesday.

The construction of a reservoir across Klong Prao was proposed by the department to tackle water shortage during the dry seaon.

He said the water from the reservoir could be used to irrigate 1,780 rai of farm land on the island and would be enough to produce tap water for the next 20 years to meet the demand of 13,000 local residents and 1.3 million tourists.

During the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha instructed the department to speed up the construction. The department was instructed to hold a meeting with the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry on the island on Wednesday to consider the use of forest area for the reservoir construction.

Wow. Something seems to have change in public health management I guess.

We were taught in our public health management classes that infrastructure such as reservoirs should not be built in places close to areas which would facilitate contamination. Examples given were; drainage ditches, sewage outlets, streams and creeks that carried industrial effluent, particularly heavy metals and organic compounds that were difficult to remove in the purification process. It was also emphasized that areas prone to the collection of agricultural run off were hazardous.

My understanding of "canals" in Thailand is that they are heavily polluted and are the equivalent of sewage/drainage ditches. So if I read this correctly, they are going to build a potable water reservoir over the equivalent of a sewage ditch?